Alex Buchholz Successes and Setbacks

By Lisa Gibson

When Alex Buchholz ran for president of the Student Government Association at Minot State University, as a junior, he lost. It was humbling and “hit pretty hard,” he says, but as he looks back at his undergraduate career, he still wouldn’t change a thing.

As a senior, Buchholz ran for SGA president again and won. Now, he’s preparing to pass the torch to the newly elected president for next year. A native of Minot, Buchholz graduates this month with his bachelor of arts and will be off to the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences in Grand Forks, where he’ll study for the next four years.

A Career in Medicine

Buchholz plans to specialize in oncology, so he hopes to be a resident at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, after med school. “I’d want to learn from the best,” he says. “My goal throughout med school is to set myself up so I can go to a residency program at Mayo.”

His initial major at MSU was accounting, but he switched to biology and chemistry in the middle of his freshman year, after discovering his interest in medicine. So the medical field hasn’t been a dream since his childhood, but he’s passionate about it anyway. “I think I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid,” he laughs, adding that, like accounting, that career path also would have included a lot of math training. His career could take him out of the Midwest, he says, but he’s ready and open to opportunities that would include a change in scenery.

Student Government

Buchholz started his SGA involvement as a freshman, running for and winning a seat as a student senator. He wanted to be involved in improving student life on campus and jumped at the opportunity to make new friends. The following year, he held the position of secretary for SGA.

In SGA, the president and senators are active on committees, advocating when an advocate is needed, he says. In Buchholz’s years in the association, it was involved in helping to lower international students’ health care costs in North Dakota, joining other North Dakota universities in voting no confidence on former North Dakota University System Chancellor Hamid Shirvani (who was ultimately released from his position), and implementing recycling measures across the MSU campus, among other actions.

After losing his first SGA presidential race, Buchholz focused on other projects and was appointed to lead the formation of the Residence Hall Association, which still thrives today under different leadership. “It’s really cool to be at the start of something and it still be there when you’re not in it,” he says. “That’s the test.”

Buchholz also saw an opportunity after losing the race to be more active in his fraternity, Mu Sigma Tau, and serve as president of Honor Society. “The biggest thing I took away from it is you’re not going to succeed all the time. You’ll maybe get pushed back a little bit. As long as you only pout for a day, not a month, you’ll see those opportunities.

“I think that was perfect for me.” PB

Lisa Gibson EDITOR, PRAIRIE BUSINESS 701.787.6753